Guest Blog: Choose Your Hard

I went back to Weight Watchers a few weeks ago.  At last week's meeting, I heard something I considered to be quite profound.

After a comment from a group member, the group leader said "losing weight is hard."  (This is not the profound part; I already knew that!)   She followed up that observation with this comment: "But so is being overweight."  (This isn't the profound part either; I knew that too!) We all agreed this was so.

Then she said (and this is the profound part): "So choose your hard."

Wow! 

Choose your hard.  Thinking in these terms opens up all sorts of possibilites because you realize that whichever road you take, it will be hard going.  Recognizing this helps you take your focus off the road itself and all the bumps, detours and setbacks along the way, and helps you focus rather on the destination at the end of the various roads before you.  And this helps you choose which one you want to be on.

I think this thought/perspective/motto has almost infinite applications to real life.  Life is hard and lots of things in life are hard.  Insert any action/choice/attitude and then its opposite to check out its universality and truth.

Keeping my room clean is hard.  Leaving my room a mess is hard.
Fixing the leak in the bathroom faucet is hard.  Leaving the faucet leaking is hard.
Going to work every day is hard.  Not going to work every day is hard.
Forgiving someone who is mean to me is hard. Holding a grudge against someone who is mean to me is hard.
Being patient with my kids is hard.  Being impatient with my kids is hard.
Feeding my spirit daily is hard.  Not feeding my spirit daily is hard.

They're all hard, just different brands of hard.  You have to look at the possible outcomes and weigh those to figure out which hard you want (or which you will find the least distasteful).

Living God's way is hard.  But so is living the world's way.  So choose your hard.